The Lesson
by Crowlows19
Summary: During a Occlumency lesson Severus Snape bites off more than he can chew. Instead of being blocked out, he's dragged in and trapped in the depths of Potter's mind. For Ficmas in July. One-Shot.


For the Ficmas in July contest. Please vote for me at ficmasinjuly(.)org . Thanks!

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"_Legilimens!"_

He saw color; too much color, and in that moment he found himself to be falling, falling through the mind he had just attacked. This wasn't right. He should be shifting through memories at this point, barely feeling Potter's weak resistance, batting it aside like some insignificant bug.

But he was falling, far too fast, disorientated and unable to breathe. His limbs scrambled instinctively to find something to hang onto, something to land on. There was nothing. He heard nothing, not even the _whoosh!_ of the air that was characteristic of falling fast and far. He closed his eyes against the rampant, swirling color, trying to gain control of his stomach and dinner.

A few moments later he felt his body jerk to a sudden halt and his eyes flew open. He was inches from a blacktop pavement. He grunted when whatever force had stopped his fall dumped him to the ground. He glanced around as he pulled himself back to his feet. He was on a tree lined road. Both sides of the black pavement led straight into the wilderness. It was dark but when he looked up he saw space. Not the sky, space. The moon was far too big, Saturn's rings graced the sky and in the wrong spot as well. There was a meteor shower to the North, and the Northern star was shining brightly in the South. Clearly Potter was failing Astronomy. There were no stars other than the one, but it took a moment for Snape to tear his eyes away.

Despite the utter ridiculousness of it all, it was beautiful and unlike anything he'd ever seen before. The distorted sky provided enough light to see around him. He didn't dare enter the forest for fear he would become lost in Potter's mind. This was unlike any Occlumency shield he'd ever seen or heard of. The enormity, the complexity of it all was far beyond the brat's skill level. Just last week, Snape had been able to drag up a few memories Potter didn't even know he had. No one improved that quickly.

So the Professor was forced to conclude that this wasn't a grand, beautiful defense. He was inside Potter's mind, probably his subconscious. To get lost here would mean never leaving. He would need to proceed with caution.

He looked behind him and saw that the road wouldn't go that way. It cut off abruptly, expanding into nothingness. The world ended in that direction. That left only one way to go. Steeling himself, Snape began to walk.

00000

"Potter!" Snape shouted out for what must have been the hundredth time. If he could just find the brat he might be able to get out of here. The road just never ended. It had occurred to him that he was standing in Potter's memories. That every tree, maybe every leaf, was a moment of his life.

But again, this was far too much improvement in so short a time. He didn't care how good you were, Occlumency was a process, one that took far longer than a week to complete.

When he looked away from the forest that his gaze just kept drifting back to, he saw a curve in the road. He halted, hesitating. The road had been completely straight up to that point and he was nervous about what he may find.

Slowly, deliberately, he moved forward letting the road take him further along. As it curved he saw the forest end and suddenly he was standing in a deadened desert. Whereas deserts normally had some sort of life, tough and hardened, this one was nothing but dirt, cracked and dry.

Snape looked ahead to see where the road went and saw it led straight to a broken down and ramshackle bungalow. He walked towards it and when he reached it he slowly walked up the two steps that creaked loudly under his weight. It was the first sound he'd heard in this place other than his own voice. He slowly opened the door, which also creaked, and stepped inside.

It was larger inside, than outside. He found himself in a small entryway to a home richly decorated with things that looked good but weren't comfortable. There were lights on and as he moved forward he glanced into a living room. The Muggle picture box was on but Snape heard no sound from it. He moved through into a sterile looking kitchen. He turned right, and found himself back out in the hallway.

His eyes strayed to the pictures on the wall. They were mostly of a fat, blond child that Snape only vaguely recognized. But when his eyes found the horse faced woman in the background of one the pictures he understood. The brat's family. This was his home.

Snape's head snapped up as he heard the creaking of floorboards above him. Footsteps. He ran to the stairs, flew up them and down the hall until he came to a room. There were locks on the outside and a cat flap near the bottom. He couldn't say why he knew to go to that room, he just felt drawn.

He undid the three locks and turned the doorknob. The room was empty. The mattress on the floor had bunched bedding on it, the owl cage by the window was bare, and the room was covered with broken things. The room was a complete mess. But there, by the wardrobe, was Potter's trunk.

Snape moved to it quickly and threw it open. He didn't know what he had expected to find but this wasn't it. Inside was a single children's book. The cardboard cover bent, faded, and held together by tape. It was about Merlin but it was a Muggle book. Snape gently picked it up and opened the inside cover.

'Harry Potter' was written on the inside cover in ink and a young child's handwriting. Not knowing what else to do Snape began to gently flip through the book not wanting to damage it any further.

About halfway through, he found a small piece of paper tucked safely within the pages. It was yellow with age, and he quickly unfolded it only to drop it in shock. It was a child's drawing, done in crayon. There were red eyes drawn in the center surrounded completely by green. It didn't take much imagination to know what the drawing was about. Snape picked the paper up long enough to look at the date in the corner. Potter would have been six years old when he'd drawn that.

He quickly refolded the paper, stuck it back into the book, put the book in the trunk, and slammed the lid closed. This was getting too odd. There was something seriously wrong with this. It was downright impossible for Potter to randomly drag someone to the depths of his mind. Not even Snape could trap someone that deep and he had been a Master Occlumens for _years_. Potter wasn't even good enough to be considered a novice.

_Creak_.

Snape whirled around. At the open door was a small child. He must have been four or five. The face was shrouded in shadow and he was wearing old clothes. Not old as in well worn but old as in from another time period. Based off what he knew of the Muggle World, Snape would have put the outfit in the forties. A blazer, shorts, and black shoes. It almost looked like some sort of uniform.

"Who are you?" Snape asked gently but it wasn't gently enough. The child moved a step back into the shadows and half hid himself behind the doorframe. "Potter? Is that you?"

The child simply moved farther out of the room and finally disappeared into the hallway. Snape tentatively followed. The haunting boy stayed about five steps ahead of him and Snape followed with more than a little dread. He clung to his wand despite knowing that it would do no good. The Potions Professor followed the boy down the stairs and back into the hallway. He watched-confused-as the boy pulled open the door to the cupboard under the stairs and disappeared inside.

He went closer and found that it was pitch black inside. He couldn't see the wall, he couldn't see anything in there. He was about to follow when he suddenly heard a small whisper.

"No," it said and Snape turned around again. But there was no one there. He looked around again, he peered into the corners, and tried to figure out where the voice had come from.

"Hello?" he called out.

"Leave," the whisper came again. This time he was able to determine that it was coming from everywhere. It was Potter; he knew it.

"Potter?"

"Leave!"

This time the voice came as a shout. A desperate, terrified shout. Snape followed the voice's advice and took off down the hall and out of the bungalow.

But when he opened the door he didn't come face to face with a darkened, deadened desert. He came face to face with a blinding white light.

00000

The light faded.

He found himself in a yard. He had managed to walk into a memory. Unlike the memories from the spell this one didn't come in flash. Also, unlike the memories from a pensive, there no distorted sound or strangeness of color. It was as if he was standing there, in real time.

But there was something wrong.

This wasn't Potter's memories. Not unless Potter could travel back and forth to the forties. He saw more children wearing the same outfit as the haunting boy in the house. He looked up and saw a sign.

_Orphanage_.

Potter had never been in an orphanage. That much he knew for sure.

What was this?

"Riddle!"

Snape snapped his head to the front door of the orphanage to see a busty and unpleasant looking woman standing on the top step and looking down right murderous. All the children stopped as well, took one look at her face, and went moving in different directions. As they cleared from the front yard he saw a small boy with neat black hair and light blue eyes simply standing there. He looked terrified and angry all at once.

"Come here," the woman hissed, pointing to the stoop directly in front of her. The boy didn't move and the woman scowled even deeper and stomped down the stairs. She began to march across the lawn and despite the obvious fear in the child's eyes he stood there stubbornly, daring her to do her worst. But before the woman could reach the child, he felt a pull behind his navel. It was so reminiscent of a Portkey that he didn't fight it. He was pulled from the memory and back into the vortex of color. He closed his eyes to brace against the nausea.

With a thud and small grunt he landed on the pavement of the cold road. He took a deep breath trying desperately to regain a sense of control. This was insane. He used the palms of his hands to push himself into a kneeling position. He looked around. He was back where he'd started but he was no closer to escaping and he was much more confused.

"Potter!" he shouted and even to his own ears he sounded desperate. "Potter!"

"Quiet."

It was that whisper again. Potter was here, he was just hiding and Snape couldn't understand why. What was Potter so afraid of that he couldn't even walk through his own mind?

"Why?" he asked. His voice was still loud but he was no longer shouting.

"He'll hear," the whisper said.

"Who?"

"The black soul. Quiet."

"The black soul? The little boy?" Snape asked.

"Quiet," whisper snapped and Snape finally fell silent. "Stay still."

Snape listened hard. He wasn't sure why Potter wanted him to stay where he was but he was fairly certain that Potter was trying to find him. He wondered if Potter was as lost as he was. It wouldn't surprise him. There was no way Potter had created this mindscape on his own.

And then Snape remembered why he had been teaching Potter Occlumency in the first place. The Dark Lord hadn't been randomly invading the boy's mind in his sleep for the last couple of months. He had been there all along. Whatever connection the two of them had, had created this place. Snape believed that he was standing in the gateway. This was the connection between their minds. This was where Potter's subconscious overlapped with the Dark Lord's.

That explained the mixed up memories. Memories the both of them were determined to bury were all here. It made Snape extremely nervous thinking he was in the darkest part of two minds that were at war with each other. He could easily be destroyed here.

"Professor?"

Snape turned towards where the whisper came from and this time the whisper was attached to a person. Potter. He was standing in between two of the trees on the edge of the road. His school uniform was gone and he was dressed in Muggle clothes. Snape believed it to be a defense mechanism.

This deep in the subconscious, nothing was coincidence. Nothing was there just because. The Dark Lord hated Muggles with all his soul and Magic. Potter's blatant use of Muggle clothes was a slap in the face to the other mind inhabiting this space.

The teen came onto the road and stopped in front of the still kneeling Potions Master. He held out his hand and Snape grasped it, allowing the small teen to pull him to his feet.

"How do we get out of here Potter?" he asked.

"I'm not sure Professor," Potter said. "I've never been this far down."

"You knew this place existed?" Snape asked, surprised. That explained everything. Potter's weak resistance to him in the Occlumency lessons wasn't because Potter didn't know Occlumency. In fact, Potter was clearly a natural. He had simply been using every bit of that natural power to block the entrance to the Gateway. That meant everything else was left exposed. Snape doubted that even he would be able to build the wall that Potter had.

"Yeah," Potter said, pulling Snape from his thoughts. "It's been here for as long as I could remember. I usually come here when I sleep."

"Does the Dark Lord come here?" Snape asked.

"Sometimes," the boy admitted. "I've never seen him but there's a little piece of him that lives here all the time."

"The little boy?"

"Yes," Potter said with a nod and a sigh. "That's Tommy. He told me that he's been here since the night Voldemort tried to kill me."

"A Horcrux," Snape whispered but Potter heard him. Everything Snape did or said would be known to Potter and possibly the Dark Lord as well.

"What's a Horcrux?" the teen asked. Snape didn't answer him.

"We need to leave," he said. "Exactly how far have you gone into this existence?"

"I normally meet Tommy on the edge," Potter said.

"You talk to him often?" That was a curious turn of events. Was Potter really conversing with the Dark Lord's trapped Horcrux?

"Not often," Potter said. "He doesn't like me very much. He calls me names and tries to trap me here a lot. I guess that's what happened tonight. I'm sorry you got dragged in with me."

"It's alright Potter," Snape said. "We need to get out of here. Which way feels like out?"

Potter looked around him. He walked two steps up the road, stopped, turned around, and walked the other way. He stopped again, looked up at the sky, looked at the woods, and then looked at Snape.

"I don't know," he finally said. Snape huffed in annoyance. He walked directly up to Potter.

"Close your eyes, Potter," Snape said and surprisingly the boy complied. "Focus. This is your mind. Search it. Which way is out?" Potter stood silently for several long minutes. At least, that was what it felt like. Time was easily misconstrued this deep in the mind. Finally the boy opened his eyes and pointed at a seemingly random direction in the forest.

"It's that way."

00000

The forest was horribly quiet. There was nothing living there, not even bugs or any sort of microscopic life. There was no wind. The leaves didn't rustle. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. Snape was forced to follow Potter through these dark, silent woods completely dependent on him for an escape. If Potter could just get them out of this deep subconscious Snape's Legilimens skills would be able to pull them the rest of the way out.

Unfortunately, their path was quickly blocked. As they came to a clearing, they immediately saw that the Horcrux-Tommy, Potter called it-was standing in their way. His head was bowed so that his entire face was in full shadow.

"Tommy, move," Potter said. Predictably, the Horcrux disregarded the direct order. But this simply made Potter angry. Snape saw the teen bristle and if he could have seen the boy's face he probably would have seen naked anger. "MOVE!"

And for the first time, Snape saw the tree leaves move, there was a sudden breeze and as the Horcrux continued to stand in their way the wind simply got stronger and stronger.

And finally, Potter screamed.

"_Move!_" The wind blew so strong that Snape had to throw his arm in front of his face to protect himself. And it only grew stronger until finally Snape heard the tell tale sound of a tree being uprooted. He looked up just in time to see a tree hurtling towards him and he ducked. It sailed right towards Potter but suddenly veered to a the right before it could make contact. The tree circled both Potter and the Horcrux as the wind continued to blow at a gale force level.

Tree after tree began to uproot and joined the first until Snape was completely blocked from Potter and the Horcrux by a swirling mass of trunk, limb, and leaf. He hunkered down, trying to protect his head, and hoping that the wind wasn't strong enough to sweep him into that vortex. He heard Potter scream again.

And suddenly, there was this bright, white light. It was so reminiscent of the one that pulled Snape into the Dark Lord's childhood memory. And as it burned brighter and expanded he was forced to shut his eyes against it, afraid of being blinded. He heard yet another scream but this time he knew it belonged to the Horcrux. It was a desperate, throaty scream that was laced with pain.

The sounds, the light, the wind lasted for only a few more seconds before everything went black and silent. The ground disappeared and once again, he was falling through nothing. His eyes flung open in time to see the colors he'd seen on the way in. They were leaving.

00000

When he opened his eyes again, he saw the ceiling of the hospital wing. He stared at, infinitely glad that he was back, that he hadn't been ripped apart by the two fighting minds. He sat up just as Potter did in the bed to his right. They stared at each other. Neither had any idea of how to talk about what had just happened.

There was a lot to that mindscape that Potter probably didn't even know existed. Snape didn't know how he would approach such a topic. It seemed that Potter's mind was infinitely more complex than anyone could have expected. Least of all him.

It was intense. It was frightening and Snape was pretty sure it was about to become his responsibility.

This was easily the worst lesson that any teacher had ever been forced to live through. And it was times like this that he seriously questioned his career choices.


End file.
